Today in APIs: Chrome's Password-Free API, and 12 New APIs

Chrome OS could be going password-free thanks to a new API. Riot's League of Legends data is now available through an API. Plus: Rainforest uses API for QA testers as an on demand service, and 12 new APIs.

Chrome to Try Password-Free Security System

Google is creating a password-free security system that allows trusted devices to unlock screens, and lets trusted apps wake machines as well. It is currently a proposed API dubbed, chrome.screenlockPrivate.

Emil Protalinski at The Next Web cautions it will be some time before this nifty API sees the light of day:

"As its name implies, the API aims to let Chrome apps lock or unlock the screen on Chrome OS. It would also let apps monitor when the screen is locked or unlocked by other means as well as show messages to the user if an app decides not to unlock the screen for some reason."

By opening up security to trusted devices, the API proposal explains, a Chrome device could be activated by a phone, ring, watch, or badge, among a list of almost limitless possibilities. Comments are collecting at a blog post by François Beaufort.

League of Legends Data Available Through Riot's API

The online game League of Legends, created by Riot, is now making its data available through an API. And it's looking to the community for feedback to further refine it.

12 New APIs

Today we had 12 new APIs added to our API directory including a uk advertising service, a bitcoin to gold exchange service, an asset-backed digital currency payment service, a latin american e-commerce platform and an automated deployment for .net. Below are more details on each of these new APIs.

Adzuna API: Adzuna is a UK based job, property and car advertising service. The Adzuna API allows users to incorporate Adzuna's up-to-the-minute employment data to power user websites, and perform reporting and data visualizations. The API allows users to query to get ads, get employment information, get categories, and check which version is currently being used. The API uses REST calls, and returns JSON, JSONP, or XML. An account and API Key are required with service.

Coinabul API: Coinabul is the first service that allows users to purchase gold using bitcoins. Gold and bitcoin prices are updated every minute, ensuring that the prices buyers see on the website are the prices they'll be paying. Coinabul uses special shipping infrastructure that includes insured shipping and nondescript packaging to ensure that orders arrive safely. The Coinabul API allows users to retrieve a data feed of bitcoin and gold prices, both in terms of each other and in U.S. dollars. Users can also place orders via API.

Evergreen API: Evergreen is a asset-backed digital currency that allows users to exchange euros for evergreens, and use them as payment. The evergreens are exchanged at a 6:1 ratio with Euros, and are backed by a basket of currencies and environmental investments. The Evergreen API uses REST calls and returns JSON. Users can make calls to interface between mobile apps and websites to manipulates wallets containing evergreens. An account is required with service.

KuroBase API: KuroBase is a cloud-based Database as a Service (DbaaS) that can be set up quickly and scales easily from shared to dedicated instances. KuroBase monitors database capacity and software status continuously, allocating, patching, and updating instances without causing any downtime or compromising end user experience. Users can schedule automatic database backups at any frequency they wish. KuroBase's web standard interface allows users to develop and deploy their databases across multiple platforms without having to recode or use a client SDK. Developers can access their database records using the RESTful KuroBase API.

MercadoLibre API: MercadoLibre is an e-commerce platform for Latin American countries. The platform covers all aspects of online retail, including building an online store, offering a range of products and services for sale, advertising those products and services, and sending and receiving payments online. MercadoLibre offers a RESTful API for integrating the various aspects of its platform into custom applications.

OctopusDeploy API: OctopusDeploy is an automated deployment system for .NET. The scale of deployments can range in size: some deploy to a handful of servers, while our largest installations deploy hundreds of projects to hundreds of servers. The OctopusDeploy API uses REST calls, returns JSON, and is largely read-only aside from a couple of calls. An account is required with service.

Offline Geolocation API: Offline Geolocation allows cellphones to derive a location without being connected to the internet or data networks. The service is designed as a failover system when a user has no Internet connection, due to roaming or coverage issues, and GPS has not been turned on, or is not available indoors. The Offline Geolocation developer kit allows users to access a global database of mobile phone cell tower locations, along with data such as MCC, MNC, LAC and cellid information. The service is free to use.

Pearson Food & Drink API: As the publishing company behind Penguin Books, Financial Times, and multiple education businesses, Pearson is one of the world’s largest learning companies. Pearson provides developer access to information from its catalog through a series of APIs.
The Pearson Food & Drink API provides developer access to content from Pearson’s inventory of educational cookbooks. The API accesses more than 4,000 recipes, provides several search options, and supports JSONP callbacks.

PsychSignal API: PsychSignal allows users to create a customized list of stock symbols for PsychSignal to monitor using their proprietary sentiment engine. They track the emotions and attitudes of people across the internet towards a company and provide an array of charts, graphs, and statistics designed to show the conditions of both the general market and individual securities at any given time. Users can follow their chosen symbols on their PsychSignal dashboard or get alerts sent to them automatically by email or SMS when conditions change.

Screenshot Shark API: Screenshot Shark is a screenshot service that allows users to build screenshot features into applications as well as make calls to capture websites. The base level subscription comes with 4,000 unique renders, and 1,000,000 requests. The API requires an account, and API key is used for authentication. The site offers several vendor kits and will create custom libraries for clients.

Twinword Language Scoring API: Twinword creates tools to collect data describing the ways in which people associate concepts. The tools include word association tests, the word graph dictionary, e-commerce recommendations, document detection, and more. Twinword provides a series of APIs that expose some of these tools.
The Twinword Language Scoring API is able to evaluate a word or string of text for difficulty. Developers pass a word or string of text with a simple GET call, and the API responds with a difficulty score and value.

Twinword Topic Tagging API: Twinword creates tools to collect data describing the ways in which people associate concepts. The tools include word association tests, the word graph dictionary, e-commerce recommendations, document detection, and more. Twinword provides a series of APIs that expose some of these tools.
The Twinword Topic Tagging API uses contextual language understanding to deliver programmatically generated tags for any given string of text. Developers simply pass a GET request containing up to 200 words or 3000 characters of text, and the API responds with a list of keywords and topics weighted for relevancy.

About the author:Greg Bates
A writer for Programmableweb since 2012, Greg is a freelance writer and a maniacal editor of dissertations and term papers. - Follow me on Google+